Jewish Weddings

I am absolutely obsessed with Jewish weddings.  They are just loaded with incredibly cool and beautiful traditions.  You could easily write a book on these, but clearly I’m not doing that.  Instead, I’ll give you a taste of what Jewish weddings are all about and what you might expect to see at one.

Prefer to learn by watching instead of reading?  I promised you a window into my world.  Here’s the 4-minute version of my wedding video, made by my incredibly talented friend Tom Miller.   Watch it with the disclaimer that some aspects are not typical of an Orthodox wedding (such as mixed dancing rather than dancing separated by gender).

Ideas about Marriage

Judaism has an amazing idea that a husband and wife are actually one in heaven, but that, when they were put into the world, they were separated into two bodies and meant to find each other.  A wedding is thus the rejoining of these two halves.  This concept of soul mates is called “Besheret” or meant-to-be.  Marriage is supposed to be all about giving to your spouse, growing together, and working as partners.

Jewish Wedding Ceremonies

Unlike non-Jewish weddings, a Jewish wedding actually does not begin with a traditional ceremony.  It begins with two separate receptions, one for the bride and one for the groom.  A bride and groom are likened to a king and queen on their wedding day, so in the bride’s room, she sits on a throne, welcoming her guests and offering them blessings.  This is called the “Kabbalat Panim.”  In the groom’s room, there’s a “Tisch,” in which people (traditionally men) sit around, singing, drinking, and sharing words of Torah.  It’s customary for people to interrupt the groom if he tries to give a speech; it’s a fun little tradition.

These two receptions end by dancing the groom into the bride’s room.  It’s called the Badeken, and it’s amazingggg.  Depending on your custom, the bride and groom go for a week before the wedding without seeing or talking to each other, and this is the first time they’ll see each other.  Imagine the ultimate “First Look.”  Everyone is singing and dancing, and it’s the most electric moment in your life.  It’s simultaneously so public and yet so private, and cards on the table, it always makes me cry.  This is the moment when Avi and I saw each other for the first time.

After the Badeken is the ceremony itself.  It takes place under a chuppah (pronounced hu-pah) or canopy.  The ceremony is performed by a Rabbi with witnesses and involves the man giving the woman a ring and saying the line “Behold, you are consecrated unto me with this ring according to the Laws of Moses and Israel.”  The woman does not give the man a ring back, as an exchange like this would nullify the transaction of receiving a ring in the first place, and thus not all Jewish men wear wedding rings.  Avi does, but I gave him the ring after the ceremony.  The ceremony famously ends with a man stepping on and breaking a glass, commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Jewish Wedding Receptions

The fun traditions do not stop at the ceremony.  The reception has tons of things you wouldn’t see in a non-Jewish wedding.  First of all, unlike in my wedding, almost all Orthodox Jewish weddings have separate dancing (by gender), with a partition in the middle called a “Mechitzah”.  Some weddings also have separate seating during the ceremony and at dinner for men and women.  As with everything else, it really depends on your community.

Jewish wedding receptions are filled with tons of horah dancing, in which people grab hands and dance around in a circle to Jewish music.  Usually, at some point, they’ll lift up the bride and groom on a chair in the middle of the circle.  My favorite part, though, is something called the Shtick.  It’s a commandment to entertain the bride and groom on their wedding day.  From this concept came the Shtick.  For part of the party, the bride and groom will be seated on the dance floor, and people will come up to them and do silly things to entertain them.  Some people wear funny costumes or wigs, bring props, jump rope, wear old college t-shirts, and just about anything else.  This is me and my mom at the shtick in my sister’s wedding.

Finally, the fun doesn’t end right after the wedding.  For the first seven days (and the wedding counts as Day 1), there are celebratory dinners held for the couple called “Sheva Bracha” dinners.  The dinner gets its name from the Seven Blessings (“sheva brachot” means seven blessings in Hebrew) which are said specially for a new bride and groom at the wedding and at these dinners.  These dinners are really nice and a great way to transition from the wedding back into normal life, but they are super exhausting!

Divorce in Judaism

With any discussion of marriage comes the question of divorce: Is it allowed, and how does it work?  In Judaism, divorce is certainly allowed, albeit discouraged if the marital problems are ones that can be worked out.  For a couple to get divorced, a husband has to grant his wife something called a “Get,” which is a Jewish legal document saying that he approves of the divorce.  A man who will not grant his wife a “get” creates a situation in which his wife cannot get remarried under Jewish life, because she is still “chained” to him.  Women in this situation are called “Agunot.”  When a man refuses to give his wife a “get,” he is supposed to be outcast from his community until he does so.  In my personal opinion, this whole system of “gets” and “agunot” is the worst part of Judaism.

Gay Marriage in Judaism

As long as we’re grappling with tough questions, this is an obvious place for questions of homosexuality to come up.  There is pretty much no such thing as gay marriage within Orthodoxy (with few, very rare exceptions at the most liberal end of the spectrum).  A Jewish marriage ceremony is explicitly designed for a man and woman, so it does not naturally lend itself to marrying two people of the same gender.  Issues of homosexuality and Judaism are currently hot topics in the Modern Orthodox community, although less so in more traditional Orthodox communities.  No matter where you fall in Orthodoxy, there is a foundational Jewish idea that all people were made in the image of G-d and merit being welcomed into a community and treated with respect.  Beyond that, how homosexuality is handled is complicated and not simple for a community operating within a strict system of laws that only leave so much room for changing with the times.